Guarded (#2 Post-Order 66 Series)

Guarded - Part 3

It was late, and as usual, Tech wasn't sleeping. Hunching over several datapads at the table in the main sitting room of the suite they shared, he rubbed his temples as he pored over the data Captain Typho had provided him. He was certain to pass out when exhaustion overcame him, either in the chair he was sitting in, or perhaps he'd be lucky enough to make it back to the bedroom he was sharing with Echo. He was surprised to hear his brother's snores already from down the hall. He rarely sleeps, so at least there's that.

The others had closed their doors, which had done little to muffle Wrecker's grunts and louder snores as he tossed and turned. He'd wound up in a room by himself with Tech and Echo sharing and Hunter and Crosshair bunking together. The tension between the sergeant and the sniper was still thick enough to cut with a vibroblade, but Tech was hopeful that perhaps the forced proximity would help lessen the strain between them. Perhaps they'll even have a real conversation at some point. He knew he really had no right to be critical of anyone's interactions with Crosshair as he could barely look his brother in the eye.

I missed it. I just assumed he was correct when he stated his chip was gone. I should have known. I should have noted the differences in his behavior, the headaches. I just missed it.

The guilt wracked him nearly every second he was around Crosshair, and it had made his interactions with him difficult, so he'd limited them. He knew if they were to function as a team again, it was something he would have to overcome. That seemed to be the biggest challenge for him at the moment, but one that could not take priority over the mission they'd been tasked with.

Tech had been going over the security system for the palace, memorizing protocols and trying to get an idea of where vulnerabilities existed. He still wasn't sure why there needed here, but he was determined to do his best to help anyway.

He leaned back in his chair, rubbing underneath his goggles as he sighed deeply. A quiet sound in the hallway made him turn his head just in time to see a shadow passing under the door. Quickly, he slipped his boots back on and slid his blaster into its holster before quietly opening their door and stepping out into the corridor. The only sound was the echoing of his bootheels on the marble flooring as he pursued the shadow as quickly as he could.

Suddenly, he rounded a corner and was in the open air, a balcony stretching out before him that looked out over the private palace gardens. Somewhere, a waterfall gurgled and the leaves of the trees whispered together in the cool night breeze. A woman leaned against the railing, her long dark hair hanging down her back in curls. She wore an emerald green robe and matching slippers, a cream colored nightgown peeking out from underneath. Her elbows rested on the stone railing, and she had her eyes closed as the breeze tugged at her hair. As Tech's footsteps grew closer, she turned to look at him, green irises piercing him in the dark.

"Good evening, Tech."

"M'lady."

She smiled. "You don't have to use formal honorifics for handmaidens."

Pushing his goggles up, Tech tilted his head to look at her. "Yes, but you're no handmaiden."

Her eyes narrowed and a smile tugged at her lips. "What makes you so sure?"

Tech moved to stand next to her, lowering his voice slightly. "Well, were all of the queen's handmaidens present when we were introduced today?"

She thought for a moment, trying to determine where he was going with this. "Yes. We were all there."

He smiled slightly. "Alright. There were six handmaidens in the room. It was hard to see all of their eye colors, but one I did see definitely had brown eyes, very different from the queen's eyes, which are green like yours. Another had a scar through her eyebrow, nothing terribly obvious, but enough to where she has a gap in the hair that grows there, which you don't have. The two that were flanking the door we entered from were several centimeters shorter than you, a subtle difference, but one I noted. And of the last two, one had hair of a similar color to yours, but it was straighter, so unless you curl your hair specifically to sleep in, that rules you out, and the other has a widow's peak, a genetic trait that you do not share."